Will John Williams Step Back From Scoring Future ‘Star Wars’ Movies?

The 86-year old composer who recently received his 51st Oscar-nomination for Star Wars: The Last Jedi admitted in a recent KUSC radio interview that after J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode IX, he’s finished with writing music for Star Wars movies.

“We know J.J. Abrams is preparing one now for next year that I will hopefully do for him, and I look forward to it,” John Williams said. “It will round out a series of nine and be quite enough for me.” The Oscar winning composer for such films as Star Wars, Jaws, E.T. and Schindler’s List said that when he wrote the music for the 1977 George Lucas movie, he never knew it would spawn sequels and sequels for decades to come. “It’s developed in the most amazing way,” said the composer.

As Disney has spun off new Star Wars titles outside of the Skywalker family episodic saga, other composers have stepped up to put their musical touches on the Lucasfilm franchise. Originally Alexandre Desplat was set to score Rogue One: A Star Wars Story but his schedule didn’t permit him to do so. Up Oscar winner Michael Giacchino delivered a robust epic score in just little over a month.

Oscar nominee John Powell is penning the music for Ron Howard’s Solo: A Star Wars Story complete with a guitar-brass infused score.

Back in 2015 Williams hit the pause button on scoring for Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies over health issues,the first time that the composer took a break from working with the blockbuster director during their 40-year plus collaboration. Instead Thomas Newman took over. While Williams scored Spielberg’s last two movies, The Post and The BFG, Alan Silvestri penned musical notes for the director’s upcoming Easter release Ready Player One.